This volume has a controversial pedigree, coming at a time of strife between D&D’s creator, Gary Gygax, and TSR, the company he helped to found. But it also introduced nonweapon proficiencies, aka skills, to D&D in addition to offering badass character classes like the monk, wu-jen, ninja and samurai.

There also was an announcement recently about a new line of D&D miniatures, prepainted of course — this time, rather than going it alone, Wizards of the Coast has partnered with WizKids to produce the line.